The Lost World of the East – Stewart Wavell (1958) (1st ed)

S$56.00

The Lost World of the East – Stewart Wavell (1958) (1st ed)

S$56.00

Title: The Lost World of the East: An Adventurous Quest in the Malayan Hinterland

Author: Stewart Wavell

Publisher: The Adventurers Club, London, 1958. First edition.

Condition: Hardcover, with dust jacket. Very good. Dust jacket wrapped in plastic. 195pp, with black-and-white photographic plates.

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From jacket flap:

This is the story of a quest. A quest for the bizarre, the unknown, the colourful, the forbidden, in the depths of the fantastic forests of Malaya.

Stewart Wavell’s has been the voice of adventure to millions. Born in a Malayan road crash, his life has been spent – and frequently risked – in probing the mysteries of this little-known edge of a dark continent and recording them on tape. His was the first on-the-spot commentary of a Malayan terrorist ambush, broadcast world-wide by the BBC: a typical assignment for a man who has always courted danger and sudden death, yet lived to tell his story.

This outstanding book – absorbing for the vivid picture it paints of a land of colour and enchantment; gripping for the dangerous situations in which the author often found himself – is the result of boundless curiosity. We read of his search for the fabulous lost city of Chini; of his dash by canoe past terrorist guns down the Sungei Neggiri disguised as an aborigine; and of his lone exploration to Malaya’s most inaccessible lake in quest of surviving prehistoric monsters.

But “Jungle Jim”, as the author is known to his friends, has also probed the jungle at dawn for Ape-Men; slept with the Negritos, the most primitive people on earth; won the confidence of Malay magicians and recorded their miracles; and penetrated the upper waters of the Teram where even Temog aborigines dare not enter and whose last-known visitors were found dead from blow-pipe darts six years ago.

About the author (from Wikipedia):

Stuart Wavell is a British journalist. Previously Arts editor and Media editor of The Guardian and Paris correspondent, he’s now a senior feature writer and author of the Weekly Profile for the UK The Sunday Times. Stuart has travelled extensively, spending time with the Semai Senoi aborigines in Malaysia, Canadian Indians in the Arctic, and a traditional Inuit hunting community on Baffin Island. He is the author of Trails To Heaven, an archeological adventure novel set on Baffin Island.